Siheyuan: Struggle Begins in the 1950s

Hearing this, Jia Zhang couldn't help but burst into tears again.

"Dongxu, Mom's life in the countryside is so hard! It's simply not a life for a human being!"

Jia Zhang cried and talked about her miserable experiences in the countryside.

As Jia Zhang cried, Jia Dongxu and Qin Huairu finally understood what had happened to her in the countryside during this period.

Originally, after Jia Zhang returned to the countryside, she lived a comfortable life for a while.

We eat white flour buns every day and meat every two or three days. We can slack off while working and not feel tired.

Of course, all this is an illusion.

In the early days of the establishment of Zhangjiacun People's Commune, the commune director had no experience.

They just followed the practice of fighting the local tyrants and dividing the land, and squandered most of the collected grain.

It's quite nice to eat the food freely.

But when the task came down from above, the commune director was dumbfounded.

It turns out that this people's commune has task targets.

Looking at the target numbers, the commune director was so frightened that he collapsed in his chair.

Then he rushed to the commune canteen to check how much food was left.

Only to find out it was too late.

The white flour left in the canteen warehouse is only enough for one week.

The person in charge of the canteen even asked him when the white flour could be delivered.

As for corn flour, the commune members all disliked it because it made their throats ache and didn't like eating it.

How can the members of our people's commune eat such coarse grains? If they want to eat, they can eat white flour.

Seeing this situation, the commune director wanted to kill someone.

Although he eats a lot during normal meals.

But this does not prevent him from shirking responsibility.

He first scolded the person in charge of the cafeteria.

Finally, all the members were called together to explain the situation.

Then everyone was dumbfounded.

Wow, it turns out that all the things that everyone ate and drank for free before were their own food.

Wouldn't that be a huge loss for me?

So a group of people started to clamor to withdraw from the commune.

But you can't join or leave the commune as you please.

The director of the commune stated on the spot that the commune could be withdrawn but the land could not be withdrawn.

Because the land is already collective.

In this situation, the members were helpless.

I can only be forced to accept this fact.

So the food in the canteen changed from white flour steamed buns with meat once every three days to corn flour steamed buns with porridge.

The steamed bread has to be distributed according to quantity.

That’s it, some bran or wild vegetables should be mixed into the steamed bread.

Otherwise, there won’t be enough food to complete the task.

Fortunately, they are all farmers who come from poor backgrounds, and they can adapt to the hard life again after enjoying it for a short time.

But the commune still has many problems.

In addition to eating, labor is also a big problem.

Most people have the same mentality towards the people's commune, a form of collective labor that is decoupled from labor remuneration.

Do as little as possible.

Try not to do anything you can avoid.

It doesn't matter whether you work more or less.

It would be better to find ways to be lazy.

Don't think that farmers are necessarily simple.

This has nothing to do with identity, it's human nature.

Therefore, all the members of the commune had the same attitude when working: they were slacking off.

Among them, Jia Zhang was the most procrastinating.

She already had objections to the canteen reform.

When the food quality in the cafeteria dropped, she was the first one to clamor to go back to Beijing.

But there is no way to escape.

Now not only can we not eat well, but we also have to work.

This made Jia Zhang very miserable.

To the extent that every night Jia Zhang would scold Qin Huairu in bed.

As for why he scolded Qin Huairu.

Of course, there is no one to scold.

Anyway, it’s natural for a mother-in-law to scold her daughter-in-law.

Jia Zhang was also famous for his slacking off.

Other members were late for work by an hour or so, but she could be late for the entire morning.

It was almost time for dinner before I took the hoe and went to the fields.

After going to the fields, I just swing the hoe a few times and then rush to the canteen to eat.

After dinner, I would find a deserted place to take a nap, then go back to the fields to pretend to work in the afternoon, and finally finish work and go home.

Because the commune had just started operating, the management was not in place.

So for a period of time at the beginning, no one cared about Jia Zhang's operations.

Anyway, it's like the pot calling the kettle black.

No one is better than anyone else.

Later, when the commune director saw this situation, he felt that this could not go on any longer.

In this way, if we can get half of the grain by the time of autumn harvest, it will be considered a gift from God.

Reform! We must reform!

In order to keep his position, the commune director enforced discipline.

He personally went to the fields to supervise several times and identified a few typical cases, which led to a lot of improvements.

Among these typical examples, Jia Zhang is naturally one of them.

Because Jia Zhang was caught and punished for evading labor, she went hungry for several meals.

Finally, Jia Zhang, who was so hungry that she was seeing stars, calmed down and started to go to work on time.

Although I still don't work hard, at least it won't be too ugly.

The opportunity for Jia Zhang to escape was during the autumn harvest.

During the autumn harvest, the commune members were worried that they would have no food to eat at home.

So everyone tried to find a way to bring the crops back from the fields.

There are many different operations, such as stuffing sweet potatoes into clothes and hiding ears of wheat in trouser legs.

When Jia Zhang saw that everyone was taking it, how could she not take it?

So when I was harvesting sweet potatoes, I hid several sweet potatoes under my clothes.

As luck would have it, the commune director happened to come for inspection.

Then, as expected, Jia Zhang was arrested again.

It's because everyone hides one or two.

But you, Jia Zhang, hid seven or eight sweet potatoes in your clothes like a pregnant woman. Aren't you afraid that others won't know you stole things?

It seems that it is this Jia Zhang who is causing trouble again.

The commune director was also furious and said on the spot that he would report the crime of stealing public property and deal with it seriously.

This frightened Jia Zhang so much that she simply ran away with a bucket of sweet potatoes in the middle of the night.

Because I was afraid of being recognized and I didn’t have a letter of introduction.

Jia Zhang could only grab a handful of dirt and smear it on her face, then rolled on the ground a few times and pretended to be a beggar as she walked back to the city.

We were delayed for two days because we took the wrong road.

In another village, he was trying to steal food from a child and was almost beaten by the villagers with his legs broken.

It was thanks to her obsession that Jia Zhang finally managed to return to the old city alive.

After listening to Jia Zhang's description, Qin Huairu and Jia Dongxu finally understood why Jia Zhang was so thin.

"Dongxu! Our farmland is gone! That was the farmland your father left for you!"

As Jia Zhang spoke, she started crying again.

Although she has escaped now, the land belongs to the collective and has nothing to do with her, Jia Zhang.

There was no way the commune would return the land to her.

Even if I return it to her, I wouldn't dare go back.

Thinking about how I had been wronged for so long, I still hadn't lost my land, and I had spent most of my private savings.

Jia Zhang burst into tears immediately.

He cried and cursed Lao Jia, asking why he didn't protect him in the underworld.

And her daughter-in-law Qin Huairu left her alone in the countryside and didn't care about her.

Qin Huairu, who was standing beside her, was so confused by her crying.

Does this have anything to do with me?

Although Jia Dongxu also felt sorry for those fields.

But now I can only comfort my mother with kind words.

When Jia Zhang had cried enough, she wiped her tears and asked Qin Huairu to bring the food over, which she began to eat voraciously.

While eating, he said vaguely:

"Dongxu, my whole body aches. Take me to the hospital for a checkup later. Don't let me get sick."